SAFE AT HOME:
Building the Domestic Church Through the Children’s Faith Formation Program
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rying to plan the fall semester for the Children’s Faith Formation program has certainly been a challenge for Jodi Stauffer, our Director of Children’s and Family Ministries. With the main goal in mind of keeping our children and catechists safe, the current plan is to take the program off-site, and evaluate it in December/ January for the second semester. The plan follows a theme that has come to the fore as health and safety precautions have been put in place— reaffirming and developing the domestic church. “We know we all have one, a domestic church,” Jodi says. “Parents are the start of it with Baptism, when they commit to raise their children in the faith. We’re working to let them realize they are the first teachers and they’ve always been the first. Religious education is there to help them as Catholic parents. We are trying to do things to strengthen their domestic church, which is the call God has given us at this time.” What most likely will be offered to parents is a box subscription plan at a minimal cost. The subscription will contain printed and multimedia material, providing the parents with talking points to spark discussion with their children at home. “They’ll be able to explain the material to their children and be able to expand, or tailor, the material as they know will work with their children,” Jodi says. “It will follow the curriculum we have been using, so there won’t be any lost ground. I can send messages to the kids about the material, and about things such as the Gospel readings. What we want to do is empower our parents to realize they do have the ability to be catechists for their children.” At this time of changed schedules and
new safety protocols, one might ask why faith formation is important for children. Jodi responds that she directs this question to parents when they begin the preparation to baptize their children — “Why do you want to baptize them?” The answer, of course, that she hears is that they want to bring their children up in the Catholic faith. “So we have that understanding, that this is the foundation of faith formation — wanting to bring their children up in the Catholic faith,” she says. “If you are going to be a skilled dancer, for example, you practice and form yourself, do a repetition of skills so you can be better. It’s the same with faith. It’s not just there, but you have to explore it, develop it and learn it. That is what we do as Church, is to offer the best we can to help the parents. We want to form the children into the best Catholics they can be, the best Christians they can be, in the direction they want to go.”
Once the semester plans are finalized, Jodi Stauffer will notify our parents about the program.
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